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From Bill Buyers, Chalk River, Neutron Program for Materials Research, NRC Canada
Cool Fields at Chalk River
Science at 300 mK and 9T
I am pleased to let users know that our new M5 magnet-cryostat is commissioned and working well. We can now study samples in a vertical field of 9 Tesla at temperatures as low as 300 mK. Oxford Instruments designed and built the cryostat at the request of Jason Gardner (now at BNL) and it was purchased by Malcolm Collins, McMaster, with a grant from NSERC. It was commissioned by Chalk River and Oxford technical staff. The first experiments in September were successfully run by Helmut Fritzsche, whom we recently welcomed when he arrived from the Hahn-Meitner Institute to take up a position in the NRC NPMR neutron group. I believe many users will want to use this splendid M5 facility to explore in H and T magnetic phases and interfaces, by means of polarized diffraction and reflectometry, as well as spin excitations.
See details at <http://neutron.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/m5.html>
The "Restoration"
This is not about restoration of the monarchy but instead of the M2 horizontal field magnet-cryostat! Many will know that this was, at Chalk River in 1986, the first in the world to allow almost unimpeded access for neutron beams (335 degrees). It has attracted many users because the field can be rotated along any axis in the crystal, and provides unique information on phase transitions, spin polarized response, magnetic superlattices and reflectometry. The M2 vacuum failed a couple of years ago and removed a most attractive capability. I am pleased to report that the Horizontal-Field Magnet Cryostat M2 has now been repaired and refurbished. This results from the year-long detective work of the youngest member of technical staff, Andrew Cull, and of our Head Technologist, Mel Potter. M2 is now back in business and has performed several experiments over the summer.
The Source
NRU is working well and serves 5 instruments
(see <http://neutron.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/home.html> ).
Visitors who do experiments at other laboratories tell me that the focussed beam of DUALSPEC (C5) delivers the third highest thermal neutron detector throughput for a give crystal and resolution. Some scientists I meet seem to think the Chalk River neutron program died in 1997 when AECL cut its funding. Far from it - we have almost 200 users per year. NRC (National Research Council Canada) took us over and helped us to grow greatly as regards funds, facilities, scientists and post-docs.
Bill Buyers
NRC-Neutron Program for Materials Research
Chalk River Laboratories
Chalk River, Ontario K0J 1J0, Canada
William.Buyers@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
Tel. 613-584-8811 e.4532 (W) 613-584-2669 (H)
Fax. 613-584-4040
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